


Fever Dream

by strawberry_cider



Series: PinotPurple fics [14]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Affectionate Insults, Banter, Canon-typical nasty, Enemies to Lovers, Fear of Death, Graphic Depictions of Illness, Graphic Description, Hospitals, Hypochondria, M/M, Mentions of Cancer, POV Outsider, Paranoia, Rivals to Lovers, Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-21
Updated: 2020-05-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:20:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24292762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strawberry_cider/pseuds/strawberry_cider
Summary: Show me cute fanart of a ship I didn’t consider before and that’s it, that’s all I need to start shipping it, one second is enough to completely change one’s life
Relationships: Michael/John Amherst
Series: PinotPurple fics [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2040973
Comments: 10
Kudos: 9





	Fever Dream

**Author's Note:**

> Enjoy it, monsterfuckers  
> I am going to write another chapter or more in the future, but this is all the inspiration I have at the moment. And I wrote this instead of final essays, oops, ok bye

Madeleine had her first asthma attack when she was 9 years old. The summer vacation started and her first year of school had ended well. She had been having a cold for a few days, but it seemed like she was finally shaking it off. She went to bed one June night and the air in her room felt hard to breathe. She opened the window to let some air in and opened the door to her room too, but it was still hard to breathe. It felt like air would not go in her lungs. She would breathe in through her mouth but it didn't feel like it was passing deeper than her mouth. Her throat felt narrower and narrower, and little Madeleine panicked and called out for her mother, crying that she couldn't breathe. She couldn't remember what happened next. Next thing she knew it was morning and she was getting out of her parents' bed, where she stayed with them. She felt like hell, and her parents' faces had expressions of exhaustion and fear. They went to the doctor that morning, who after a couple of tests, diagnosed Madeleine with bronchial asthma. Madeleine couldn't remember those days very well. They passed in a blur of fatigue and worry and hospital corridors. She could recall that at one point a doctor gave her a tube thing she had to exhale into, to determine how weak her respiratory system was. The tube had a ball inside that her breath had to raise to a certain point. The doctor kept telling Madeleine to do it again, to exhale as hard as she could, but Madeleine's chest was already hurting. She just wanted to go home.

Once home, Madeleine had to take all these medications and pills. She couldn't run and play with the other kids as feverishly as she did before, until she was panting and her sides burnt, because that following night she would feel like her throat was seizing up again. She had to carry an inhaler with her at school and when she was outside in general, because she never knew when her lungs would decide the air was too humid or that they were suddenly tired. It felt as if she was carrying a spoiled brat in her chest that threw tantrums constantly. Madeleine hated using her inhaler in front of other people, because they would stare and ask the same questions over and over. Even if she answered them, it seemed like they forgot them immediately, especially the teachers, who admonished her for missing class when she was sick. Gym teachers were literal demons.

Madeleine used to like the rain before, because she would go and run around in the puddles in her pink rubber boots and duckling-yellow raincoat, but now the rain irritated her and she dreaded whenever the weather prognosis predicted it. Her body could feel it when a rain was near even a full week prior, it could feel the subtle changes in the air and atmosphere and decide to strangle her. As the years passed and she grew up with it, the fear turned into exasperation. It felt like she, her body and her mind were all separate, and the two would periodically gang up against her. Her parents and her family tried to be compassionate, but they couldn't understand. They were healthy people, never had a problem in their lives, and neither did Madeleine until that summer when she was 9 years old. Why did this have to happen to her? It was not fair. Nothing was fair. And then her parents and family would try to tell her to be positive, to not be angry and agitated, because that would only upset her more and make it worse. How was she supposed not to feel all that when her own body and nature itself were against her?!

When Madeleine was 21, she had a really bad period of time with her asthma. The weather went crazy, because of global warming probably and all that, so her body followed suit. She had to be hospitalised, because it felt like her inhaler wasn't working anymore. She would use it, but her throat still felt as if she was breathing through a straw, and she would use it again, several times in desperation, but she still couldn't breathe, she had to do it manually, force the air in and out, until she was tired and got scared of what would happen when she couldn't do it anymore, while her mouth and throat tasted of bitter powder.

The doctor told her that they were going to try a new type of inhaler. From what Madeleine understood, her body changed naturally as she grew up, and so did her respiratory system. What had worked for twelve years decided not to work anymore. The doctor decided to keep her around for a couple more tests. Madeleine didn't have the energy to protest anymore.

Madeleine hated hospitals. The white walls and floors and everything, and the artificial light, and the cacophony of coughs and sneezes and retching made her feel even more sick than she was. The nurses couldn't give a shit about the patients and loudly gossiped in the hallways. One of them wondered why Madeleine was there, as there were people with worse illnesses than her that could use that bed. Asthma is a chronic illness, shouldn't she be used to it by now? Madeleine wondered how they got their degrees if they were so stupid. Then again, many of the bullies from school expressed desire to become nurses and doctors.

Madeleine's hear hurt, both from being tired and frustrated. She decided to take a walk outside the hospital and she made her way through the hallways, where people waited to hear their faiths. Some of the old people had such nasty expressions and accusatory glares as she passed by, as if she was the cause of them having to wait in line. Somewhere down the hall somebody was coughing, a gross and wet sound, full of phlegm and maybe even blood. Madeleine wanted to go home.

Outside the hospital there were a handful of people chatting and smoking, visitors, patients and nurses alike. Madeleine held her breath as she walked past them. The outside of the hospital didn't look much more inviting. The white paint of the exterior was chipping away from age, a sickly yellow underneath. On the ground there were weeds, discarded cigarette buds, and a can of some energy drink. Madeleine kicked it as she walked and a little residue liquid fell out. It was brown. A couple of ants immediately made their way to it, followed by the rest of their companions. Madeleine looked up at the sky and saw it was white with clouds, ever-so-slightly turning grey at the horizon. A rain was coming. Great.

Madeleine's eyes returned down and she saw that among the people taking a figurative breath of fresh air was a man in a suit. She couldn't tell if he was a visitor or a patient. His skin was disturbingly pale and shiny from sweat. His hair, short and thin, was curling from it at his temples. He looked like he hadn't taken a bath in while. Not that Madeleine was one to talk, she couldn't bathe either because of the steam. The man happened to turn his head in her direction and saw that she was looking at him. His eyes were bloodshot. He looked at her for a moment, and then he gave her a little cordial smile. Madeleine did not react and made her way back inside, her chest starting to hurt. It was just some unwashed creep.

The elevators were all allegedly occupied, so she made her way back up the many stairs, to the section of the hospital dedicated to lung ailments. God, why did they put it so high up? Who thought of this design? Madeleine felt herself start to wheeze as she finally reached her floor. Her inhaler was in her room, she was going to be fine, no need to fret, she just needed to get there. She took a deep breathe as she made her way down the hallway. Most of the people were gone now, and there were rows of empty plastic seats. She could hear people in the rooms and other areas, talking and hacking and walking around. There was someone behind her too, and by the sound of the shoes, must have been a doctor. She ignored it as she tried to ignore the other disgusting sounds. Her head was pounding. She felt so tired.

She pushed open one of the doors connecting the hallways, covering her hand with her sleeve. Had she been more aware, she would have seen it was a wooden door rather than the usual glass ones. In her defence, the hallways she walked into were the same colour of the hospital walls and had the same artificial, nauseating white light. She thought she heard someone say “Finders keepers!”, in an annoying sing-song voice, but it didn't sound like there was somebody there – it was probably coming from one of the rooms. After a while she also noticed she could not hear the person behind her anymore. Later she noticed that she had been walking for quite some time, but still wasn't reaching her room. Then that there were no room to go into.

Jeffrey felt a little sick, but not _that_ sick. He had been scolded before for letting things get very bad before seeking help, mostly in regards to going to the dentist, but it would always be fixed, even if taking a little longer and costing more. Everything would turn out fine in the end. Jeffrey honestly didn't feel that sick, he went into the doctor's office expecting to be told it is an indigestion or maybe even an allergy he hadn't been aware of. Next thing he knew, he was moved into intensive care, he was being wheeled into operation rooms and he was seeing doctors look over test results, trying to conceal their concern and dread as to what was to come. Jeffrey could not understand half of the things they were telling him. What he knew was that he needed help immediately, or his life would be cut short, and that he needed money he did not have for medicine and procedures just as uncertain as his current future.

The symptoms his doctors warned him about began to surface more and more. He hadn't felt anything before, and now it was all cascading over him with no mercy. He was tired and his head ached. Next, nothing he ate would stay in his stomach, he would retch it out in a couple of hours. He was hooked up to an intravenous thing, drip drip dripping from a bag hung on a pole by his bed. He got so thin he couldn't recognise himself. How did his life get turned upside-down so fast? A few weeks ago he was checking out of work, making jokes with his friends, and heading to their favourite bar, howling at the game on the TV, playing pool and laughing themselves to tears with dumb stories. Now he was confined to a bed, his bones more and more visible, his abdomen rotting on the inside. He had no control of his bowels anymore, it was embarrassing. He almost didn't want his friends to visit him, to see him like that, to see what became of him.

Jeffrey wondered what would have happened if he never went to the doctor. Would these symptoms have made themselves apparent in the same way? Would it have been too late by then to help and he would have been taken out of misery faster? Would he have one day just collapsed dead in the street? He had this thought that wouldn't leave his mind that if he hadn't went to the doctor, maybe nothing would have happened. He would have died blissfully ignorant of how bad everything was, without trying treatment after treatment that would prove itself to be useless. He wondered how much of his pain was true and how much of it was placebo from being surrounded by anxious doctors and nurses. They asked him over and over again what something felt like, how bad it hurt, making him doubt himself if he was explaining it right, if it was really that bad. Or what if he wasn't telling it right and messing up his own recovery? He wasn't the most eloquent guy. Oh, Jeffrey wished he never knew of how bad it all was.

When they moved him to the hospice, he knew his days were numbered. The doctors had nothing left to do, but to wait for him to kick the bucket. Jeffrey dreaded going to sleep, now with the imminent threat of dying any moment. What if that time when he closed his eyes was the last one? What a way to die, he thought. Half of his weight, hooked up to a heart monitor, tubes up his nose and arm, probably soiling himself. The nurses at the hospice were infinitely kind and patient with him, but he could see in their heavy eyes that he wasn't the first to die in such an unpleasant way. Jeffrey thought he wouldn't be able to work in a hospice, surrounded by so much death. One of the nurses (Jeffrey assumed he was nurse, he didn't have the strength to ask) looked like he was on the verge of death himself. He talked to Jeffrey often, assuring him that it was soon going to be over. Jeffrey accepted that his death was imminent and this man's idea of small talk didn't bother him that much, but it was rather morbid. Other patients probably don't like him.

Jeffrey wasn't sure if it was day or night when he died. Everything was starting to blur together. He would watch the bag his IV fed him drip drip drip in the darkness of his room, and suddenly sunlight was coming out of his window. He would watch a nurse change his bag and leave, only to come back a second later with a new one – did a whole day already pass? The pain in Jeffrey's stomach would shift around his intestines. He got this image in his mind of a rat travelling inside his stomach, trying to claw its way out, but lost in the maze of guts. Jeffrey wondered how it got there. He would shift his skeleton hand and try to touch it, through his hospital gown and his thin skin, and it would settle. Aww, it just wanted pets.

The male nurse was next to him. His face looked oily and dirty, and his smile was constant, like he was watching a good comedy. He seemed to be waiting for something, perhaps Jeffrey's death. Jeffrey wanted to ask him what he was doing there, but his jaw felt too weak to move and his eyes kept wanting to close. The rat hadn't moved in a while and his entire body felt like it was gradually going numb. The pauses between his heartbeats on the monitor were larger and larger. Jeffrey would have been worried about that if he were aware of anything anymore.

He was brought to his senses for a second as he heard a foreign sound – a wooden door opening. Jeffrey moved his eyes to the wall opposite his bed, where he was rather certain there was never a door. A man stepped out. Unlike the nurse, his appearance was cleaner, even if his clothes were gaudy. Not that Jeffrey knows too much about fashion. He was blond and tall, easily taller than Jeffrey, who was 6'5'', or at least used to be. The blond man looked at him with a little smile, but his smile immediately fell into an almost offended frown when he saw the male nurse. The nurse grinned a victorious smile from ear to ear, revealing dirty teeth and swollen gums. “Finders keepers.” The nurse said, mockingly, trying to stifle a full-blown laugh. The blond man was not at all happy, glaring at the nurse defeated and mad about it. Jeffrey wondered what had taken place between these two, when he noticed that his heart monitor wasn't making any sound anymore. All three men looked up at it, and indeed, there was a flat line and an unpleasant continuous sound. Jeffrey eyelids felt tired after forcing them to lift up and they immediately closed, cutting off Jeffrey's last thoughts.

Emily's father was healthy man. He almost never caught colds. He never had any major problems in his life, other than achy bones, which all old men have. He did football in his youth and he was a very active man well into his last years. He didn't smoke and he didn't drink. He was the most lively man Emily knew. Then he had a heart-attack, out of nowhere, at the age of 49. He was at work and he told one of his colleagues that he couldn't feel his hands anymore, for some reason. The colleague looked at him and saw Emily's father turn deadly pale and sweat bead his forehead. He and another colleague rushed him to the hospital, but it was too late. One day Emily's father was fine, and next he was gone. She lost her hero and protector, and her mother lost the love of her life. Emily almost dropped out of high school, she couldn't focus to finish it, she didn't want to do anything anymore. It had always been the three of them, the Terrence Trio. She knew her parents would die eventually, she knew they weren't immortal, but she always thought it would happen when she would be old herself, in her forties or fifties.

She took a gap year between high school and college. She lost her best friend too, because she learned that she gossiped behind Emily's back, saying that Emily was taking advantage of her father's death to postpone entrance exams and have more time to prepare for them, while the others had to scramble right after the high school finals. Emily cut her off and, on a second thought, everyone else from high school. She didn't trust anyone anymore with her grief, and she didn't care about anyone anymore. She wanted her father back. Her mother was hit even worse. Emily couldn't begin to imagine what she was going through. Mother and daughter both let themselves go and Emily begrudgingly applied for colleges. She chose something that she didn't much care for, but would at least land her a job fast, so she could support her mom. Emily's mom started drinking to drown out the pain of losing her husband. You can't cry if you are passed out and you can't think of dark things if your head hurts.

Eventually, things got better. Slowly but steadily they got their lives not back to how it was, but less miserable. Emily's mom stopped drinking and even enrolled herself in a program to achieve it. Emily finished college and got the job. They bought an apartment for the two of them, cosy and affordable, and with the money they got from their old house they threw a house-warming party in the honour of her father. Everything seemed like it was going to be alright again. The only occasional irritation was the aches in Emily's bones, something she inherited from both her late father, and her mother, in the same way she inherited their allergies, her father's hair and her mother's eyes. For a time after her father's death, Emily developed a fear she didn't have before. She was more than ever attentive at her heart. He didn't have any health problems either, but what if something would strike her later in life in the same way it hit her father? Or even earlier? She'd lie for hours in bed, fingers against her neck, listening to her pulse, straining her touch to feel any discrepancies, any anomalies in the rhythm, something she should worry about. After things got a little better, she stopped thinking about her heartbeat for a while.

Then Emily's mother got diagnosed with liver cancer. It was discovered during a routine check. The doctor sat her down and told her, trying to keep a calm and reassuring tone, “Mrs Terrence, you have cancer. _It is treatable,_ but we need to start immediately.” The news hit Emily like a train. Her heart felt like it was going to break out of her chest with panic. Her mother drank while she was grieving, but it wasn't for that long. Other people drank themselves silly and had no problem, and her mother never had nay problems either before, _why was this happening?!_ Does this mean Emily is susceptible to liver cancer too? Will she get it too if she drinks? She drank a lot at college parties, are there latent cancer cells in her liver ready to take over any moment too? Emily's heart was beating so fast, was she going to have a heart attack from the stress?

Emily paid and walked her mother through the cancer treatment. She watched her mother become gaunt and lose her hair. They waited for weeks for a liver donation to be available, staying up at night, worrying it would be too late by the time they received it. Emily had nightmares of being diagnosed with something herself and going through it all over again, the treatments not working on her, the disease advancing faster on her, making her mother lose a child on top of having lost a spouse. Emily's mother was declared cancer-free two years later and they victoriously returned home. Emily's mother was beaming with joy and relief, and Emily smiled back, but all she could see was how weak her mother had become. She didn't look healthy again. Emily obsessively looked at her own body, at her father's hair which was thinning, at her mother's eyes which her bloodshot, at how she was losing weight from worry and how that made her worry more and lose even more weight.

Emily paid so much money for lab tests and checks on herself. She was certain there was something wrong with her as well. There had to be, she knew there was. Something hidden, waiting to strike once she was happy again, when she least expected it, a disease she didn't even consider before. There are so many possible ailments the human body can have and she could have any of them and have no idea of it. She had to know, she had to stop it before it killed her first.

She walked into the long hallway where her doctor's office was, a long corridor with plastic chairs on either side for people to wait. There were only two other men there at the moment. She sat a few chairs away from them, opposite of them, trying to sit down without touching the chair. Emily waited, staring at the floor, fingers hard against the veins in her neck, against her racing heart. Some results were going to come in today. They never showed anything and she insisted they be made again, the results were wrong, there had to be something. She glanced at the other two men, who also seemed to be waiting for results. Well, they had to wait, _her_ appointment was due in the next two minutes.

They seemed to be around the same age. The one to the left was looking absent-mindedly at the wall before him, lost in his own thoughts. His hair was blond and voluminous, a mass of natural curls. He was dressed a little thick for the warm weather outside, with a colourful shirt and sweater vest underneath. His face was plain, but pleasant to look at. Emily couldn't decide if his eyes were blue or green. The man to the right wasn't in his best shape. His face was thinner and more angular, and greasy too. It looked like he hadn't washed his face that morning. His eyes were a light green she never saw before, and his hair was dark brown, and visibly dirty. Eww. He was wearing a suit, a plain and simple two-piece, light brown, which hadn't been properly ironed in quite some time. Emily excused his appearance on account of the fact he looked very ill indeed. Emily wondered if it was contagious. He was looking down at the ground. Emily followed his eyes and saw a fly walking around on the ground. How did a fly get in the hospital? Was the staff not paying attention? What other cleaning regulations were being broken?

Emily went deaf to anything but her own rambling thoughts, not noticing that the men were quietly talking, without looking at one-another.

“Isn't it better like this?” Michael asked. “No arguing? No pettiness?”

“Hmm, maybe.” John said, clearing his throat of gunk before continuing. “Even though, I must admit, it was funny to see you pout like that whenever I stole someone from under your nose.”

Michael narrowed his eyes and smiled in contempt. “I did not think you would stoop so low as to steal other people's food. Couldn't you acquire your own?”

“Look who's talking.” John said, the side of his mouth twitching up in a smile. “Wasn't it you who started this?”

“I had had my eyes on the asthmatic girl since she was a child. _You_ just happened to be there. It is not my fault you were disappointed she had already been taken.”

“Oh, yeah? Why is it you are targetting sick people lately? Don't you think you're trespassing a little?”

“I don't. Physical illness often causes mental illness, or aggravates it. I have no interest in the physical symptoms. The pus and vomit are all yours, don't worry.”

“Wouldn't that be cheating? Going after people who are already losing it, rather than making them lose it yourself? You've been getting lazy, Distortion.”

“Look who's talking! Don't you do the very same thing since you dropped dead in that grave you were digging? Which was overdramatic, if you ask me.”

“Good thing I didn't ask. And yes, I have been doing it, from time to time, I won't deny it. I took to doing it more frequently after I noticed you preying on sick people. So I could take them right before you got a chance to do it. Someone had to put you in your place.”

“Who are you, Smirke?” Michael rolled his eyes.

“You're rude, Distortion.”

“ _I_ am the rude one?”

“Since you gobbled up that Michael, yes. He's influencing you.”

Michael furrowed his brows. He didn't look like he wanted to talk anymore.

“I don't think that's a completely bad thing.” John said after a moment, turning to look at Michael. He could only see his side profile, which was Michael's side profile. Michael Shelley was a very pretty boy, with blond eyelashes, with clean, spotless skin, a Greek nose and pretty pink lips, currently tightly closed and pouting. His face was almost too harmonious to be now the face of the Distortion. It was such a contradiction, it fit perfectly.

“Of course you'd think that.” Michael said, huffing out a bitter laugh. “My ritual's ruined and you can focus on your own, unbothered.”

“It will still take a while.” John said, stifling the urge to pull one of Michael's curls behind his ear. “I don't expect to be taking over the world any time soon.”

“Hopefully you won't. No offence.”

“Only some taken. Hey, at least you'll have plenty of despairing sick people to feed on.”

Michael finally smiled. “At least that.”

John smiled too.

“Miss Emily Terrence?” The nurse asked as she opened the door to the doctor's office.

Emily's head shot up.

“You lab test results are in.” The nurse said, on a calm and soothing voice. It reminded Emily of the tone the doctor used when he dropped the bomb on her mother. Emily felt colour drain from her face and her eyes well up with tears.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!  
> 


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